Spitalfields Lifehttp://spitalfieldslife.com
In the midst of life I woke to find myself living in an old house beside Brick Lane in the East End of LondonSat, 10 Dec 2016 00:01:25 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0Bob Mazzer At The Ace Cafehttp://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/10/bob-mazzer-at-the-ace-cafe/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/10/bob-mazzer-at-the-ace-cafe/#commentsSat, 10 Dec 2016 00:01:25 +0000the gentle authorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=152143Contributing Photographer Bob Mazzer & I joined a Bike Couriers Reunion at the Ace Cafe on the North Circular recently. Despite their fearsome black leather outfits, we enjoyed a generous reception from the bikers. “They’re outsiders,” Bob explained to me, “So they welcomed us because they recognised we’re outsiders too.”

]]>http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/10/bob-mazzer-at-the-ace-cafe/feed/0Richard Dighton’s City Characters, 1824http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/09/richard-dightons-city-characters-1824/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/09/richard-dightons-city-characters-1824/#commentsFri, 09 Dec 2016 00:01:22 +0000the gentle authorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=152219Fat cats in the City of London are nothing new as these elegant cartoons of Regency bankers by Richard Dighton that I discovered in the archive at the Bishopsgate Institute testify

Whenever I walk down the Mile End Rd, I always take a moment to step in through the archway and visit Mile End Place. This tiny enclave of early nineteenth century cottages sandwiched between the Velho and the Alderney Cemeteries harbours a quiet atmosphere that recalls an earlier, more rural East End and I have become intrigued to discover its history. So I was fascinated when Philip Cunningham sent me his pictures of Mile End Place from the seventies together with this poignant account of an unspoken grief from the First World War, still lingering more than fifty years later, which he encountered unexpectedly when he moved into his great-grandparents’ house.

“In 1971, my girlfriend – Sally – & I moved from East Dulwich to Mile End Place. It was number 19, the house where my maternal grandfather – Jack – had been born into a family of nine, and we purchased it from my grandfather’s nephew Denny Witt. The house was very cheap because it was on the slum clearance list but it was a lot better than the rooms we had been living in, even with an outside toilet and no bath.

There were just two small bedrooms upstairs and two small rooms downstairs. In my grandfather’s time, the front room was kept immaculate in case there might be a visitor and the sleeping was segregated, until Uncle Harry came back from the Boer War when he was not allowed to sleep with the other boys. For reasons left unexplained, he was banished to the front room and told he had better get married sharpish – which he did.

I first met my neighbour Mrs Johnson when gardening in the front of the house. I said ‘Morning,’ but there came no reply.‘What a nasty woman’ I thought, yet worse was to come. Mrs Johnson lived at the end of the street and two doors away lived a vague relative of hers who was married to an alcoholic. ‘She picked ‘im up in Jersey,’ I was told. He drank half bottles of whisky and rum, and threw the empties into the graveyard at the back of our houses – sometimes when they were half full.

I would often go to our outside toilet in socks and, on one occasion, nearly stepped upon pieces of broken glass that had been thrown into our backyard. At first, I assumed it was Paul – the graveyard keeper – and went straight round to his house in Alderney St. I nearly knocked his door down and was ready to flatten him, until he became very apologetic and explained that Mrs Johnson had told him we were students and always having parties. True in the first count, lies in the second. Mrs Johnson knew quite well who the culprit was, as did the everyone else in street. I was still angry, so I threw the glass back where it came from - which must have been a real chore to clear up on the other side

Sometime after all these events, Jane Plumtree – a barrister – moved into the street. She said ‘We must have street parties!’ and so we did. At the first of these, the longest established families in the street all had to sit together and – unfortunately – I was sat next to Mrs Johnson. She hissed and fumed, and turned her back on me as much as she could, until suddenly she turned to face me and said, ‘I knew your grandfather J-a–c—k, he came b-a–c—k!’ She spat the words out. I did not know what she was talking about so I just said, ‘Yes, he was a drayman.’

Later, I reported it over the phone to my Auntie Ethel. ‘Oh yes,’ she explained, ‘Mrs Johnson had three brothers and, when the First World War broke out, they thought it was going to be a splendid jolly. They signed up at once, even though two were under-age, and they were all dead in three months.’ Unlike my grandfather Jack, who came back.

Jack was married and living in Ewing St with his five children, but he was called up immediately war was declared because had been in the Territorial Army. He was present at almost every major piece of action throughout the First World War and, at some point, while driving an ammunition lorry, he got into the back and rolled a cigarette when there was no one around. He got caught and was sentenced to be shot, but – fortunately – someone piped up and declared they did not have enough drivers, so his punishment was reduced to six weeks loss of pay, which made my grandmother – to whom the money was due – furious!

When Jack and the other troops with him came under fire in a French village, he and an Irish soldier broke into a music shop for cover. On the wall was a silver trumpet which Jack grabbed at once, but his Irish companion grabbed the mouthpiece and would not let Jack have it unless he went into the street, amid the falling shells, to play. Reluctantly, Jack did this – playing extremely fast – and he brought the trumpet home with him to the East End.”

19 Mile End Place

Philip’s grandfather Jack was born at 19 Mile End Place

View from 19 Mile End Place

Philip purchased 19 Mile End Place from his cousin Danny Witt, photographed during World War II

Outside toilet at 19 Mile End Place

Backyard at 19 Mile End Place

View towards the Alderney Cemetery with the keeper’s house in the distance

]]>http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/08/phil-cunninghams-mile-end-place/feed/5So Long, Joan Naylorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/07/so-long-joan-naylor/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/07/so-long-joan-naylor/#commentsWed, 07 Dec 2016 00:01:32 +0000the gentle authorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=152148Today we say farewell to Joan Naylor who died on 18th November, aged eighty-eight. She was the last of the residents of Bellevue Cottages in Stepney from the time when these were staff accommodation for the adjoining Charringtons Brewery and below you can read her story.

This is Joan Naylor, photographed in the garden of her house in Bellevue Place, the hidden terrace of nineteenth century cottages secluded at the rear of the former Wickhams’ department store in the Mile End Rd.

Joan moved into Bellevue Place with her husband Bill in 1956 when they were first married and they brought up their family there. “When we first moved in it was known as ‘Bunghole Alley’ and no-one wanted to live there,” she recalled with a shrug. Originally built as a crescent of cottages around a green which served in the Victorian era as tea gardens, Charringtons built a brewery on the site, lopping the terrace in half, constructing a wall round it and using the cottages for their key workers. Enclosed on all sides, there is a door in one wall that led directly into the brewery, which remains locked today, now the brewery is gone.

Joan’s husband, Bill, was a load clerk whose job it was to devise the most efficient delivery routes and loads for the draymen on the rounds of all the Charringtons pubs in the East End. When Joan arrived, the brewery workers started early, commencing each day with a few pints in the tap-room before beginning work, and Bill was able to pop home through the door in the wall at nine o’clock to enjoy breakfast with Joan.

“If you looked out of the bedroom window, you could see a pile of wooden barrels a hundred foot high, and the smell of stale beer permeated the air.” said Joan, recalling her first impressions.“Nothing had been changed in the house. The brewery brought in the decorators but we still had a tiny bathroom off the kitchen and an outside loo. It didn’t bother me. When you think we brought up six of us in that house – I remember the ice on the inside of the window! We used to cut up old barrels to light the fire and they’d burn really well because they had pitch in them.”

With pure joy, Joan remembered the days when there were around a dozen children, including her own, living in Bellevue Place. They all played together, chasing up and down the gardens, an ideal environment for games of hide and seek, and there were frequent parties when everyone celebrated together on birthdays, Christmas and Bonfire Night. “There was always a party coming up, always something to look forward to,” explained Joan, because it was not only the children who enjoyed a high old time in the secret enclave of Bellevue Place.

Although unassuming by nature, Joan became enraptured with delight as she explained that, since everyone knew each other on account of working together at the brewery, there was a constant round of parties for adults too. It was the arrival of Stan, the refrigeration engineer and famous practical joker, to live in the end cottage, that Joan ascribes as the catalyst for the Golden Age of parties in Bellevue Place. You can see Stan in the pith helmet in the photo below. When all the children were safely tucked up asleep (“We had children, we couldn’t go out“), the residents of Bellevue Place enjoyed lively fancy dress parties, in and out of the gardens, and each other’s houses too. “The word would go around from Stan and we would go round the charity shops to see what we could find, but no-one would tell anyone what their outfit was going to be. It was lovely. Everybody had fun and nobody carried on with each other’s wives.” Joan assured me.

Let us not discount the proximity of the brewery in our estimation of the party years at Bellevue Place because I doubt there was ever any shortage of drinks. Also, number one Bellevue Place, the large house at the beginning of the terrace, was empty and disused for many years, and the brewery even gave the residents a key, so it became the social venue and youth club for the terrace, with a snooker table, and a roof top that was ideal for firework parties. With all these elements at their disposal, the enterprising party animals of Bellevue Place became expert at making their own entertainment.

There is a bizarre twist to Joan’s account of the legendary parties at Bellevue Place, because she was born on the twenty-ninth of February, which means she only had a birthday every leap year. So, when she did have a birthday, Joan’s neighbours organised parties appropriate to the birthday in question. In the photo below you can see her reading a Yogi Bear annual as a present for her seventh birthday, when she was twenty-eight years old. I hope it is not indiscreet to reveal that Joan did reach her twenty-first birthday.

It is apparent that the mutual support Joan enjoyed amongst the women in her terrace, who became her close friends, and the camaraderie shared by the men, who worked together in the brewery – all surrounded by the host of children that played together – created an exceptionally warm and close-knit community in Bellevue Place, that became in effect an extended family. Even though they did not have much money and lived together in a house that many would consider small for six, Joan’s memories of her own family life were framed by this rare experience of the place and its people in this particular circumstance, and it is an experience that many would envy.

Eventually, Joan moved out of Bellevue Place for good, but she had become the resident who had lived there the longest and became the living repository of its history. I visited her in sheltered housing in Bethnal Green where she told me her beautiful stories of the vibrant social life of this modest brewery terrace, while her son John, who was a regular visitor, worked on his handheld computer in the corner of the room.

“We were very lucky to have lived down there to bring up the family,” said Joan, her eyes glistening with happiness, as she spread out her collection of affectionate and playful photographs, cherishing the events which incarnate the highlights of her existence in Bellevue Place. She may have first known it as “Bunghole Alley,” but for Joan Naylor “Bellevue Place” lived up to the promise of its name.

In this Bellevue Place fancy dress group, Stan wears a pith helmet and Bill is dressed as an arab

Joan, as flapper, with her neighbour Harry

Joan (holding the glass) and her neighbours as hippies

Lil, Teddy and Tilly, Joan’s neighbours in Bellevue Place

Joan with her husband Bill, and Mrs Boxall who had lived the longest in Bellevue Place at that time

One of Joan’s birthday parties, with presents appropriate to her seventh birthday

St Nicholas was the greek Bishop of Myra (now Demre in Lycia, part of modern-day Turkey) in the early fourth Century AD. Many miracles are attributed to his intercession and, over the centuries, he became a hugely popular saint. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose English name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas (St Nick). In 1087 his relics were furtively transported to Bari in South-Eastern Italy, which is why is he sometimes referred to Saint Nicholas of Bari. His feastday is today, December 6th. Happy St Nick’s Day!

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors, merchants, archers, thieves, pawnbrokers, children, and students (amongst others) throughout Christendom. He is show here in classical episcopal attire, with a few of the symbols assigned to him on the right – the three golden balls, a ship and infants in a barrel.

The most famous story involves helping out a poor man with three daughters. The father couldn’t afford a dowry for his three girls – it would have meant they remained unmarried and possibly be forced into prostitution. St Nick interceded by secreting donating three purses of gold coins over three nights, one for each of the three daughters. In some stories he threw the purses in through a window to avoid being identified as the donor, in others he dropped the money down the chimney, where it landed – plop – into the stocking of one of the girls. Hence the pawnbroker’s balls, Christmas stockings and gift-giving associated with the saint.

Another legend tells how a famine struck the land and a malicious butcher lured three little children into his house, where he slaughtered and butchered them, placing their remains in a barrel to cure, planning to sell them off as ham. Saint Nicholas, visiting the region to care for the hungry, not only saw through the butcher’s horrific crime but also resurrected the three boys from the barrel by his prayers. Hence the symbol of kids in a barrell or vat (I have only shown two not three as I ran our of space!) and hence St Nick’s association with children.

However, it is likely that the legend grew up from a misinterpretation of ancient icons and images of the saint where he is shown baptising heathens in a font. To show reverence for the saint, the men being christened were shown small, and over time, misread as being nippers in brine.

Here you see Blackie, the last Spitalfields market cat, taking a nap in the premises of Williams Watercress at 11 Gun St. Presiding over Blackie – as she sleeps peacefully among the watercress boxes before the electric fire with her dishes of food and water to hand – is Jim, the nightman who oversaw the premises from six each evening until two next morning, on behalf of Len Williams the proprietor.

This black and white photograph by Robert Davis, with a nineteenth century barrow wheel in the background and a nineteen fifties heater in the foreground, could have been taken almost any time in the second half of the twentieth century. Only the date on the “Car Girls’ Calendar” betrays it as 1990, the penultimate year of the Spitalfields Fruit & Vegetable Market, before it moved East to Stratford.

In spite of Jim the nightman’s fond expression, Blackie was no pet, she was a working animal who earned her keep killing rats. Underneath the market were vaults to store fresh produce, which had to be sold within three days – formalised as first, second and third day prices – with each day’s price struck at two in the morning. But the traders often forgot about the fruit and vegetables down in the basement and it hung around more than three days, and with the spillage on the road which local residents and the homeless came to scavenge, it caused the entire market to become a magnet for vermin, running through the streets and into the labyrinth beneath the buildings.

It must have been paradise for a cat that loved to hunt, like Blackie. With her jet black fur, so black she was like a dark hole in the world running round on legs, vanishing into the shadow and appearing from nowhere to pounce upon a rat and take its life with her needle-sharp claws, Blackie was a lethally efficient killer. Not a submissive creature that could be easily stroked and petted as domestic cats are, Blackie was a proud beast that walked on her own, learnt the secret of survival on the streets and won independent status, affection and respect through her achievements in vermin control.

“They were all very pleased with Blackie for her great skill in catching rats, she was the last great market cat.” confirmed Jim Howett, a furniture maker who first met Blackie when he moved into a workshop above the watercress seller in 1988. “The other traders would queue up for kittens from Blackie’s sister’s litters because they were so good at rat-catching. Blackie brought half-dead rats back to teach them how to do it. Such was Blackie’s expertise, it was said she could spot a poisoned rat at a hundred feet. The porters used to marvel that when they said, ‘Blackie, there’s a rat,’ Blackie would focus and if the rat showed any weakness, would wobble, or walk uncertainly, she would turn her back, and return to the fire – because the rat was ill, and most likely poisoned. And after all, Blackie was the last cat standing,” continued Jim, recounting tales of this noble creature that has become a legend in Spitalfields today. “The story was often told of the kitten trained by Blackie, taken by a restaurant and hotel in the country. One day it brought a half-dead rat into the middle of a Rotary Club Function, seeking approval as it had learnt in Spitalfields, and the guests ran screaming.”

The day the Fruit & Vegetable Market left in 1991, Blackie adjusted, no longer crossing the road to the empty market building instead she concentrated on maintaining the block of buildings on Brushfield St as her territory by patrolling the rooftops. By now she was an old cat and eventually could only control the three corner buildings, and one day Charles Gledhill a book binder who lived with his wife Marianna Kennedy at 42 Brushfield St, noticed a shadow fly past his window. It was Blackie that he saw, she had fallen from the gutter and broken a leg on the pavement below. “We all liked Blackie, and we took care of her after the market left,” explained Jim, with a regretful smile, “so we took her to the vet who was amazed, he said, ‘What are you doing with this old feral cat?’, because Blackie had a fierce temper, she was always hissing and growling.”

“But Blackie recovered, and on good days she would cross the road and sun herself on palettes, although on other days she did not move from the fire. She became very thin and we put her in the window of A.Gold to enjoy the sun. One day Blackie was stolen from there. We heard a woman had been seen carrying her towards Liverpool St in a box but we couldn’t find her, so we put up signs explaining that Blackie was so thin because she was a very old cat. Two weeks later, Blackie was returned in a fierce mood by the lady who taken her, she apologised and ran away. Blackie had a sojourn in Milton Keynes! We guessed the woman was horrified with this feral creature that growled and scratched and hissed and arched its back. After that, Blackie got stiffer and stiffer, and one day she stood in the centre of the floor and we knew she wasn’t going to move again. She died of a stroke that night. The market porters told me Blackie was twenty when she died, as old as any cat could be.”

Everyone knows the tale of Dick Whittington, the first Lord Mayor of London whose cat was instrumental to his success. This story reminds us that for centuries a feline presence was essential to all homes and premises in London. It was a serious business to keep the rats and mice at bay, killing vermin that ate supplies and brought plague. Over its three centuries of operation, there were innumerable generations of cats bred for their ratting abilities at the Spitalfields Market, but it all ended with Blackie. Like Tess of the D’Urbevilles or The Last of the Mohicans, the tale of Blackie, the Last Great Spitalfields Market Cat contains the story of all that came before. Cats were the first animals to be domesticated, long before dogs, and so our connection with felines is the oldest human relationship with an animal, based up the exchange of food and shelter in return for vermin control.

Even though Blackie – who came to incarnate the spirit of the ancient market itself – died in 1995, four years after the traders left, her progeny live on as domestic pets in the East End and there are plenty of similar black short-haired cats with golden eyes around Spitalfields today. I spotted one that lives in the aptly named Puma Court recently, and, of course, there isMadge who resides in Folgate St at Dennis Severs’ House, and my own cat Mr Pussy whose origins lie in Mile End but who has shown extraordinary prowess as a hunter in Devon – catching rabbits and even moorhens – which surely makes him a worthy descendant of Blackie.

John Leighton’s ‘London Cries & Public Edifices’ were published in 1851 under his pseudonym of ‘Luke Limner.’ Today Leighton is remembered primarily for his designs for book bindings but his ingenious Cries of London evoke the long-lost street life of the capital with sympathy and sly humour.

This Turkish rhubarb seller in Leadenhall St fascinates me, especially as fresh rhubarb is sold by the Costard-Monger in another plate, yet since Leighton refers to rhubarb here as a drug and it is being sold in dried form, I conclude that this gentleman is selling rhubarb as a laxative. I leave you to imagine what cry might be appropriate, although I understand the phrase “Fine Turkey Rhubarb!” was sufficient to get the message across. In fact, John Leighton himself was not averse to a little hawking and if you study the hoardings closely, you will see they advertise his other self-published works.

The Cherry Seller, The Milk Maid and The Bay Seller are elegant young women presenting themselves with poise to catch the attention of the viewer, but in engraving of The Match Seller a different sensibility is at work. The nature of the viewer is specified through the shadow of the lady and gentleman approaching the Bank of England – and the anxious expression upon the seller’s face underlines the irony of the lowliest vendor standing in front of the symbol of the greatest wealth.

Each of Leighton’s characters have vivid life, as if they are paying rapt attention – like the Cats’ & Dogs’ Meat Seller in Smithfield, surrounded by dogs and cats, and just waiting for an animal lover to come along with cash to feed the hungry. Some of these engravings appear to be portraits, because who would invent the one-legged Chair Mender or the flamboyant Costard Monger or the crone Watercress Seller who appears to have walked out a fairy tale? The hunched posture of the Umbrella Mender tells you everything about his profession, while the Hot Potato Seller jumping to keep warm in the snow suggests direct observation from life.

It is remarkable how many of the landmarks of 1851 stand unchanged – in the City of London, where John Soane’s Bank of England, the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange face each other today just as they did then, and further west, Charing Cross Station and Trafalgar Square are as we know them. At first, I thought the sellers and the buildings looked as if they were from separate drawings that had been pasted together, until I realised that this disparity is the point – the edifices of wealth and the occupations of the poor.

The Tinker is swinging his fire-pot to make it burn, having placed his soldering iron in it, and is proceeding to some corner to repair the saucepan he carries.

Of all the poor itinerants of London, the Matchsellers are the poorest and subsist as much as on donations as by the sale of their wares

Here is a poor Irish boy endeavouring to dispose of his oranges to some passengers outside an omnibus

These little prisons are principally manufactured by foreigners who have them of all sizes to suit the nature and habits of little captive melodists

This artificer does not necessarily pay much rent for workshops, as he commences operations with his canes or rushes up the nearest court or gateway

As the vendor approaches, the cats and dogs bound out at the well-known cry

The costume of the Dustman bears a string resemblance to that of the Coalheaver, probably through their being connected with the same material, the one before it is burnt, the one after

The blind must gain a livelihood as well as those who are blest with sight. He sells cabbage nets, kettle-holders, and laces, doubtless the work of his own hands in the evenings

During the day, the Umbrella-mender goes his rounds, calling “Umbrellas to mend! Sixpence a piece for your broken umbrellas!” and then he returns home to patch and mend them, after which he hawks them for sale. Here he appears in his glory under the auspices of St Swithin.

Of cherries, there are a great variety and most come from the county of Kent

The Costard Monger is an itinerant vendor of garden produce, in the background is a seller of hearthstones in conversation with a Punch & Judy man

The dealers in these items are mostly Italians, our vendor has some high class items, the Farnese Hercules, Cupid & Psyche, and Chantrey’s bust of Sir Walter Scott.

“How very cold it is!” The Potato-merchant jumps about to warm his feet

Bow Pots! (or Bay Pots!) two a penny!

Wild ducks from the fens of Lincolnshire, Rabbits from Hampshire and Poultry from Norfolk

There is a law that permits of Mackerel being sold on Sundays, and here comes the beadle to warn off the Fish-woman

The old clothesman and bonnet-box seller go their rounds

Of dealers in milk there are two classes – the one keeping cows, and the other purchasing it from dairymen in the outskirts and selling it on their own account

At half past eight, the step is mopped and Betty runs to get the penny for the poor old dame

Knife Grinder at the entrance to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, with a seller of rush, rope and wool mats

]]>http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/04/john-leightons-cries-of-london/feed/6Paul Gardner Goes To Downing Sthttp://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/03/paul-gardner-goes-to-downing-st/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/03/paul-gardner-goes-to-downing-st/#commentsSat, 03 Dec 2016 00:01:42 +0000the gentle authorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=152027Today is East End Independents’ Day celebrating the small businesses and shops of East London

“I just hope something might happen”

Paul Gardner, the fourth generation paper bag seller of Spitalfields’ oldest family business Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen and founder of the East End Trades Guild, went to 10 Downing St yesterday to meet Margot James, the Minister for Small Businesses.

After Gardners’ Market Sundriesman was honoured by being selected as one of Britain’s top One Hundred Small Businesses, Paul joined fellow proprietors from across the country in Whitehall on Thursday. This event was in advance of Small Business Saturday, which is celebrating independent shops across the nation today.

I met Paul afterwards while he was still flush with excitement and pride from his moment in the political spotlight. “They were taking so many pictures of me when I was standing in the street in Whitehall that other people were coming up to have their photos taken beside me,” Paul admitted with a grin, “Because I had a suit on they thought I must be important in government – someone said, ‘Is he a Lord or something?’ I said, ‘Not yet!’”

“I set up a stall inside Downing St with all my paper bags and memorabilia. There were about twenty-five stalls but most of the other businesses did not have anything to show because they worked in IT or marketing and were quite new. They did not have my history. There were none like me, who have had a small family business that has gone on for four generations through thick and thin.

Margot James, Minister for Small Businesses, gave a speech about how important we were for the economy and then she went around the stalls to visit us all. I told her what a struggle it is for small businesses and I gave her a paper bag with a letter to Theresa May in it, concerning our problems with business rates in London.

The rateable value of my shop was £18,000 but it is going up to £40,000 in March. It means not much of a future for my business. I have not got much to look forward to if I have to pay £500 a week business rates before my rent, which is already fairly unbearable. When I tell people what I have to pay they are flabbergasted. Most people who run a small business are just keeping their heads above water, but if they have another £300 a week to find that will be the end.

People come to East End for the little independent shops – they do not come here for High St brands – but the little independent businesses are suffering. The landscape will change considerably in Brick Lane and the surrounding areas because the prices of goods in the shops will have to go up so much that they will become unworkable and people will buy on the internet instead. The rents are so completely mad. There have been 300% increases. Even some of the big people are moving out. Barbour quit the Spitalfields Market recently.

‘They are looking in it,’ Margot James said to me. Whether they are or not I do not know but she seemed concerned. It is very hard to know whether they will do anything. I did the best I could to ask her because I am in fear whether my business will be here much longer and whether there will be many small businesses left in the East End. It will not be workable for most of us any more.

Primarily, I was there to celebrate my business and Margot liked all the artefacts because there are no other paper bag shops. So she was pleased to meet me and I did manage to speak to her a lot. I got to the point fairly quickly and she was quite forthcoming.

I was very pleased and honoured that I was invited. It was a defining moment in my life, going to 10 Downing St. I think my mum will be very proud of me. It was one of those days that will stick out for the rest of my life and I just hope something might happen.”

LETTER DELIVERED TO 10 DOWNING ST IN PERSON BY PAUL GARDNER

Dear Theresa May,

Last Monday, you stated “I will always be one of the strongest advocates for the role businesses play in creating jobs, generating wealth and supporting a strong economy and society.” Today you celebrate the vast contribution that small businesses have given to this role, yet government policy simultaneously threatens to extinguish it by implementing an excessively high rates revaluation to small businesses in London, the bedrock of a “strong economy and society.” Gardners’ Bags, and businesses like it will not be able to carry the burden of this policy. Be sure to celebrate our founding member Paul Gardner today, because his business will be destroyed next year if urgent action is not taken.

London is home to over 800,000 small and medium sized enterprises and micro businesses, that make up 99.8% of London’s private sector, representing nearly fifty per cent of all employment in the capital, and (excluding the financial and insurance sector) accounting for approximately £430 billion of business turn-over. The East End Trades Guild is a leading innovator in the organisation and representation of this booming constituency. Our members have helped make the East End the creative and social hub of London, and a pull for millions of international visitors and locals. Serving 520,000 people per month with a total turnover of £77 million, we still manage to know many of our customers by name.

Businesses across London face a rates increase of over 100%, this simply cannot be sustained. The Federation of Small Businesses’ recent survey of micro and small businesses in the capital, found that nearly two thirds (63%) will miss out on business rate exemption. Displacing them to other regions will not only intensify the environmental damage that already shortens the lives of our children, it will cut off sustainable growth, not just for London but for the country. It is the particular diversity of enterprises within London that is essential to healthy local economies – the backbone of a strong national economy.

We back calls from the Federation of Small Businesses to increase relief threshold in the capital, and support the All Party Parliamentary Group for London in their plea to revise the transitional relief proposals, to give small businesses a realistic chance of planning for the rates increases caused by a seven year gap since the last revaluation.

The East End Trades Guild was formed to take action on the common interests of its small business members from a position of strength. The story of Spitalfields oldest family enterprise – Gardners’ Bags, in the globally popular blog Spitalfields Life was the catalyst for the establishment of our Guild. We are proud that our founder – Paul Gardner has been selected as one of the Small Business 100, and is receiving highly deserved recognition at number 10 Downing Street today.

While you celebrate Paul Gardner and all the small businesses that give so much to our country today, we ask that you help us to help you “build a stronger, fairer Britain together” and pursue urgent action on business rates for London and be the “government that is not afraid to act to ensure the benefits of economic growth are shared by all.”

Yours sincerely

The East End Trades Guild

Waving to the assembled crowd

Paul took a case of paper bag samples to Downing St

Paul in his usual attire as the ‘Paper Bag Baron of Spitalfields’

Photographers Hannah Lane, Sarah Ainslie & The Gentle Author

Gardners Market Sundriesmen, 149 Commercial St, Spitalfields, E1

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You may like to read my other stories about Paul Gardner & Gardners’ Market Sundriesmen

]]>http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/03/paul-gardner-goes-to-downing-st/feed/15So Long, Whitechapel Bell Foundryhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/02/so-long-whitechapel-bell-foundry/
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2016/12/02/so-long-whitechapel-bell-foundry/#commentsFri, 02 Dec 2016 00:01:08 +0000the gentle authorhttp://spitalfieldslife.com/?p=152049It is with deep regret that I announce the closure of Whitechapel Bell Foundry, the world’s most famous bell foundry and Britain’s oldest manufacturing company. Below you can read my interview with Alan Hughes, the last in a line of bell founders stretching back to 1420, who will retire next year at sixty-eight years old when the foundry closes in May 2017 and the building is sold – meanwhile, negotiations for the future ownership of the business are underway.

“We have made this decision with a heavy heart, but in response to the changing realities of running a business of this kind. The Bell Foundry in Whitechapel has changed hands many times, but it has always been a family business. My own family has owned the foundry since 1904, but other families have run the firm through its history, which stretches back to 1570. The business has been at its present site over two hundred and fifty years. So it is probably about time it moved once again. We hope that this move will provide an opportunity for the business to move forward in a new direction.” Alan & Kathryn Hughes

If I confide that my favourite sound in all the world is that of bells pealing, you will understand why the Whitechapel Bell Foundry became such a source of fascination to me over all these years. Every time I walked past the ancient foundry walls (the oldest manufacturing company in the land – founded in 1570), I wondered about the alchemical mystery of bellfounding taking place inside. One day as I passed, walking down from Spitalfields to the Thames, the steel doors at the rear were open and, peeking in from the harsh sunlight outside, I was afforded a tantalising glimpse of huge bells glinting in the gloom of the engineering shop.

So you can imagine my excitement when I received the invitation to meet the current master bellfounder in an unbroken line of master bellfounders that stretches back to 1420. Stepping inside, out of the rain in Whitechapel Rd, I found myself in the foundry reception lined with old photographs and compelling artifacts, like the wooden template (displayed over the entrance as if it were the jaws of a whale) that was used when Big Ben was manufactured here. Among all the black and white photos, my eye was drawn by some recent colour pictures of a royal visit, with Her Majesty in a vivid shade of plum and Prince Philip looking uncharacteristically animated. I was thinking that the bell foundry must work a powerful magic upon its visitors, when a figure emerged from the office and I turned to shake the hand of Alan Hughes, the master bellfounder. Alan’s great-grandfather Arthur Hughes bought the business in 1884, which makes Alan a fourth generation bellfounder.

A sense of awe filled me as I shook hands with this unassuming man in a natty blue suit but I composed myself as best I could, while he led me through a modest office where two people worked behind neat desks and one of those fake cats dozed eternally in front of the stove, to arrive in the boardroom where a long table with a red cloth upon it occupied the centre of a modest but elegantly proportioned Georgian dining room. We drew up chairs and commenced our conversation as the Whitechapel drizzle turned to dusk outside.

Alan’s fine manners and levity kept me guessing whether everything he said might actually be a proposal, as if he was simply trying out thoughts to see how I would react. I took this as an indication of courtly assurance. Alan wears his role with the greatest of ease, as only someone born into the fourth generation of an arcane profession could do, and I wondered if the royal visit might have been an occasion for mutual recognition between those born into long-standing family businesses.

Up above, I could hear music. It was Alan’s daughter and her friend, both music students, practising the piano and the trumpet. The prevailing atmosphere was that of a work place yet it was domestic too. When Alan’s predecessors set up the business on this site, before the industrial revolution, they attached the factory to the house so they could walk from the dining room into the foundry at their convenience. The feeling today is akin to that of the quiet living quarters of an old college or liturgical institution.

Alan has worked here over fifty years and, describing the changes he has seen, he glanced over my shoulder to the window several times, as if each time he glanced upon a different memory of the Whitechapel Road. The East End was a busy place in the nineteen fifties, as Alan first recalled it, not only because of the docks but because of all the factories and the manufacturing that happened here. “Whichever way it was blowing, you got this lovely smell of beer on the wind – from Trumans or Watneys or Charringtons or Courage or Whitbread…” Alan told me, explaining the locations of the breweries at each point of the compass. In the nineteen seventies and eighties, when the docks and factories closed, Alan found the place desolate, he peered from the window and there was no-one in the street. “And then things started getting trendy. Instead of closing they started opening – and now, suddenly, it’s ok to be in Whitechapel!” said Alan, clasping his hands thoughtfully on the table and looking around the room with a philosophical grin, “But this place hasn’t changed at all. I always find it vaguely amusing.”

Tentatively, I asked Alan what it meant to him, being part of this long line of bellfounders. Alan searched his mind and then said, “I don’t think about it very often. I would like to meet some of those people, Thomas Mears (master bellfounder from 1787) who would know the place today and Thomas Lester (master bellfounder from 1738) who had this part built. It would be nice to have a conversation with him. He would recognise most of it.” Then the gentle reverie was gone and Alan returned to the present moment, adding, “It’s a business,” in phlegmatic summation.

“Our business runs counter to the national economy,” he continued, “If the economy goes down and unemployment rises, we start to get busy. Last year was our busiest in thirty years, an increase of 27% on the previous year. Similarly, the nineteen twenties were very busy.” I was mystified by this equation, but Alan has a plausible theory.

“Bell projects take a long time, so churches commit to new bells when the economy is strong and then there is no turning back. We are just commencing work on a new peal of bells for St Albans after forty-three years of negotiation. That’s an example of the time scale we are working on – at least ten years between order and delivery is normal. My great-grandfather visited the church in Langley in the eighteen nineties and told them the bells needed rehanging in a new frame. They patched them. My grandfather said the same thing in the nineteen twenties. They patched them. My father told them again in the nineteen fifties and I quoted for the job in the nineteen seventies. We completed the order in 1998.”

Alan broke into a huge smile of wonderment at the nature of his world and it made me realise how important the continuity between the generations must be, so I asked him if there was pressure exerted between father and son to keep the foundry going.

“My great-grandfather never expected the business would outlive him. He had three sons and the sale of the business was arranged, but my grandfather refused to sign the contract, so the other brothers left and he took over. My grandfather ensured his sons had good jobs and even my father wasn’t convinced the business could succeed, so he studied foundry technology for four years at every foundry in the south – thinking he could work for them – but every single one of those has now closed.” Then Alan looked out the window again, gazing forward into time. “As a master bellfounder, you never retire. We go on until we die. My grandfather, my father and my uncle all died of a heart attack at eighty.”

The implications of Alan’s conclusion are startling for him personally, even though he has many years to go before eighty. “You’re a very eloquent man,” I said in sober recognition, “No, I’m not!” he retorted cheekily. “You have such interesting things to say,” I replied lamely, “No, I don’t!” he persisted gamely, obstinately raising his eyebrows. Nevertheless, Alan’s life as a bellfounder is remarkable to me and maybe to you too. Seeing his life in comparison to his predecessors, Alan embraces the patterns that prescribe his existence, for better or worse, and his personal mindset is the result of particular circumstances, the outcome of four generations of bellfounding. Alan has my greatest respect for his immodest devotion to bells.

When we get such bright winter days it becomes an imperative to take a walk and enjoy the benefit of the sunlight, especially now we have arrived at the season of the year when a clear sky becomes a precious commodity. So I decided to walk up to Bethnal Green and admire the majestic pair of gasometers, planted regally side by side like a king and queen surveying the Regent’s Canal from aloft.

Ever since I learnt that these nineteenth century gasometers had been granted a ‘certificate of immunity against listing’ by Historic England, which guarantees they will never receive any legal protection from destruction, it has been in my mind to undertake a walk to view them properly in advance of the day when they may be gone.

My path took me up the Queensbridge Rd, past the thick old brick walls bordering Haggerston Park that were once part of the Shoreditch Gas Works which formerly occupied this site, built by the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company in 1823. The Bethnal Green gasometers were constructed to contain the gas that was produced here, fired by coal delivered by canal.

In the Queensbridge Rd, I came upon The Acorn which has recently closed and is now scheduled for redevelopment unless the current bid for ‘asset of community value’ status can save it. This traditional East End pub which opened before 1869 must once have served the workers from the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company across the road.

Approaching along the canal towpath, George Trewby’s gasometer of 1888-9 dominates the skyline, more than twice the height of its more intricate senior companion designed by Joseph Clarke in 1866. Crossing Cat & Mutton Bridge, which is named after the nearby pub founded in 1732, I walked down Wharf Place and into Darwen Place determining to make as close a circuit of the gasometers as the streets would permit me.

Flanked by new housing on either side of Darwen Place, the gasometers make a spectacularly theatrical backdrop to a street that would otherwise lack drama. Dignified like standing stones yet soaring like cathedrals, these intricate structures insist you raise your eyes heavenward, framing the sky as if it were an epic painting contrived for our edification.

Each storey of Joseph Clarke’s structure has columns ascending from Doric to Corinthian, indicating the influence of classical antiquity and revealing the architect’s chosen precedent as the Coliseum, which – if you think about it – bears a striking resemblance to a gasometer.

As I walked through the surrounding streets, circumnavigating the gasometers, I realised that the unapproachable nature of these citadels contributes to their magic. You keep walking and they always remain in the distance, always just out of reach yet looming overhead and dwarfing their surroundings.

At the south-easterly corner of my circular ramble I arrived at Grove Passage, an old field track cutting through the grid of the streets and by-passing a crumbling brick tower worthy of Piranesi. This is London’s last undeveloped bomb site, thanks to its location islanded on all sides by other properties.

From here I walked through The Oval, which is a light industrial state these days but takes its name from the ancient duckpond at its centre – now filled in and crowded with tightly-packed irregularly-parked vehicles. In spite of the utilitarian nature of this landscape, the relationship between the past is clear in this place and this imparts a strange charisma to the location, an atmosphere enhanced by the other-wordly gasometers.

Now that I have walked their entire perimeter, I can confirm that the gasometers are most advantageously regarded from mid-way along the tow path between Mare St and Broadway Market. From here, the silhouette of George Trewby’s soaring structure may be be viewed against the sun and also as a reflection into the canal, thus doubling the dramatic effect of these intriguing sky cages that capture space and inspire exhilaration in the beholder.

We can only hope that whoever develops this site recognises the virtue in retaining these magnificent towers and integrating them into their scheme, adding value and distinction to their architecture, and drama and delight to the landscape.

Opened before 1869, The Acorn in the Queensbridge Rd has recently closed although applicants for Asset of Community ValueStatus hope to save it.

The view from Darwen Place

Decorative ironwork and classical columns ascending from Doric to Corinthian like the Coliseum

The view from Marian Place

The view from Emma St

Grove Passage leading from Emma St to Mare St, with London’s last bombsite on the right

The view from the Oval

Offices of Empress Coaches in Corbridge Crescent

The view from Corbridge St

The view from Regent’s Canal towpath

George Trewby’s gasometer of 1888 viewed from Cat of Mutton bridge over Regent’s Canal